Archives

As an artist, I have always used my work as a vehicle to express how and what I feel. The sources that I draw inspiration from cover a spectrum of subjects, typically my work, however abstract in its final form, is originally inspired by a source text, whether literary, visual, or cultural in nature. Although I am a painter, I see my work as not being limited by the tradition of the medium and have currently begun to explore and experiment with many different albeit unconventional materials. My latest body of work has been inspired by the notion of the medieval practice of Imaginative Pilgrimages. It was the habit of medieval monks, who often transcribed and copied literary works and maps, to imagine that they themselves were seeing and experiencing these far away lands and events. Often, these monks would mark in the margins their spiritual pilgrimage and actually draw places and cities though they had never left the room. Using this idea as my foundation, I was intrigued by the idea of evoking the feeling that cities, countries, and even history can conjure up. I began to work with the maps of old cities and countries, trying to bring to the surface of the work what I imagine it would feel like to have traveled there. I wanted to take in my “imagined” surroundings through all of my senses and recreate the resonant feeling with color, structure, and material.

About the Artist: Romy Mariano is originally from San Diego CA. She graduated from Lafayette College in 2005 where she majored in Art and English and received honors for her painting thesis. Romy has had several successful solo and group shows and has exhibited both in the United States and Italy. As of the fall of 2008, Romy has been pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting at the San Francisco Art institute where she plans to graduate in the spring of 2010.